Instead of losing their 10th game of the season, the Dodgers won their 20th. They are tied with the Atlanta Braves for the best record in baseball at 20-9. The Dodgers have outscored their opponents by 68 runs thus far, the best run differential in baseball, three ahead of Atlanta. It’s the seventh-best run differential through 29 games in franchise history.
During the Dodgers’ streak of 13 consecutive playoff appearances and counting, only twice did they get to 20 wins this quickly. In 2020 they started 21-8 en route to a 43-17 (.717) record in the shortened season and their first championship in 32 years. In 2022, the Dodgers were 20-9 on their way to 111-51 (.685), the most wins in the National League in 116 years. That year did not lead to postseason success, however.
Of those first 17 starts this good, eight Dodgers teams reached the World Series, plus the 1899 Brooklyn Bridegrooms who had the best record in the National League but had no postseason in which to participate.
The cumulative winning percentage of those teams on the season was .619, which translates to 100 wins in 162 games. The worst winning percentage among those 17 teams was by Brooklyn in 1943 at .529, which translates to 86-76 over 162 games. The median wins per 162 games of this group was 102 (really 101.6) wins, by the 1952 Brooklyn team that went to the World Series.